I'm still at ~201-202. Hoping another few days of going to bed hungry will put me sub-200.

As for lifting, my strength in some areas has returned fast. I did upright rows with 135, aimed for 10 but only got 2x8. Next round I'll aim for 135x10, then 135x15+.

I kinda feel like post illness I ought to start with the smaller muscles and work up to deadlifts from there. Not sure why but it's a gut feeling and I will go with it. That said, I plan next to do kickbacks and curls, then chest, then get back to overhead pressing and deadlifting.

I'm now practicing doing my martial arts while running and doing novice level parkour. You know, seemless transitions between the one and the other. Never going to become an IRL Jackie Chan/Solid Snake hybrid if I don't train that way.

Today I overhead pressed. Got 155x13. That's surprising to me since I was so weak when I was sick lately. I expected my strength would waste away, but I only lost about 1 rep. After one more lift I should hit 15+, after which I should be working with 175x10 and going from there. Sick.

Oh, and while we're at it I figured out the solution to breathing while lifting, in case I hadn't already mentioned. All I had to do to make weight lifting feel even more effortless was to disregard all common advice about breathing technique. Everyone advocates exhaling while you push on the weight, but that just leads to a poor man's valsalva maneuver, like a valsalva maneuver in denial. I instead find it more natural and simple to INHALE on the positive and then exhale on the negative. It goes against all advice on breathing technique ever given since time began, but it works great.

It turns out my father did the same thing, and since he used to be monstrously strong that means I must be onto something good.

I initially noticed I was sick when I could only pull 350x2.5 despite pulling 330x15 earlier that week. With that experience fresh in my memory, I was a little reluctant to start working with 350.

I did find that my grip seems to have suffered a good bit from this last illness, and so it was still difficult for me to get more than two or three reps. Last time I stopped after only a few pulls because something just felt "off" in a way that I knew exactly what was happening, but this time I wasn't dismayed: since I couldn't do any 10 rep sets or any of that, I did a bunch of triples, doubles and singles with 350 just to get my volume up.

My plan is a progression something like this:350xMx3, 350xMx1->350xMx5->350x10->350x15+

where M is the number of sets you can do without working to failure.

There's something interesting here in that if I can pull this off successfully, I will officially have mastered progression at every rep range, starting all the way down from a single heavy triple and working with it all the way until I can do an entire continuous set of 15-20 reps with that same weight.

I don't think this will be as big of a feat as I may be imagining though, because really all I need to do is have my hands grow back to where they can hold a heavy weight for many reps. My back and legs can already take it.

Some really good stuff in here... and I am 100% with you in your belief that fasting is good for you.

You write like I think (if that makes sense). Over time I think I have learnt to over-simplify my thoughts, ideologies and hypothesis' as when I put them out there, whoever reads them usually greets them with either silence, lack of comprehension or just straight out disbelief. I say disbelief because many of my opinions border on being unconventional ~ but hey, even the most widely accepted theories quite probably started out as being "unconventional".

So you jumped on the vegan train in July, are you still doing it or have you fallen off the wagon? Hearing about new contracts with shipping meats over to China and back for cheaper (and sketchier) processing should hopefully deter some more of those people that are on the fence about going plant based.